


your future is optional

by gayprophets



Series: Author's Favorites [10]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alternate Season 5, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical levels of suicidal ideation?, Canon-Typical spiders, Codependency, Established Relationship, Fluff, Give Martin A Machete 2020, Here's How The Web Can Still Win!, Humor, LOTS of casual intimacy, Literal Self Hatred, M/M, Season 1, Time Travel, Trans Martin Blackwood, Trans Sasha James, Trans Tim Stoker, enough love to make you choke, it's t4t!, learning how to be kind to yourself, more tags TBA! author is flying by the seat of their pants!!!!, not caring if they live or die i mean, season 5, theyre all trans here., this thing runs the fucking gamut of emotions hold onto your hats, trans jon sims
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22592680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayprophets/pseuds/gayprophets
Summary: “The Watchers Crown,” Annabelle says. “I would like you to undo it.”“We’vetried,”Jon snarls, and Martin tightens his grip on his hand. “There’s nothing to be done about it.”“You haven’t had my help, nor the Mother’s,” Annabelle says. “Itisa tad bit too late now, I must admit. We are wellpastthe window of opportunity to unfuck ourselves, I’m afraid, but there’s still…time.”She doesn’t laugh, but there’s still an air of a joke about her. “If you’re willing totravelto find it.”There’s a beat of silence, Annabelle clearly waiting for something.“Oh my God,” Martin says suddenly. Jon is staring at her blankly, either uncomprehending or flabbergasted. “Are you seriously suggesting - you’re not,” he continues, because shecan’tbe, hemustbe misreading the situation somehow. “You have to be joking,” he says, desperate, “You’re not suggestingtime travel.”Annabelle cocks a perfectly-manicured eyebrow, smiling serenely, and Jon bursts into hysterical laughter.-Martin and Jon change the past, see old friends, kill their boss, and finally get some rest.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: Author's Favorites [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1505972
Comments: 110
Kudos: 953





	your future is optional

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the time travel au. It's here, everyone.

In the intervening year and a half since Jonah Magnus put on the Watcher’s Crown via _ripping it through Jon’s head,_ Martin has figured out which Entities are the easiest burden to bear, and which are better left alone. The Web manages to be both at once; it’s pointless to resist it, but whenever they end up in a house with more cobwebs than normal, they leave the area as soon as possible. Unless they literally can’t- the Mother of Puppets has ended up being something close to a balancing force, sending them places to wipe out whatever it has decided it doesn’t want hanging around. 

Jon’s picked up roof running with the ease of someone secure in Knowing all the angles and drops of the path he’s taking, what to land on, how to land on it to keep himself from breaking. This is good, of course, because Jon is not a very strong man. Scaling the side of a building would not be within his wheelhouse without the help. The only reason he manages it even now (regardless of how effectively he uses his knowledge) is because he’s so light.

It proved well-worth the use of eldritch clairvoyance when they rid Leeds of a Flesh monster that had been slowly consuming what remained of the populous. Jon stayed well out of reach, high above the ground, as he taunted a frenzied mob into following after him. He stood on the roof of a shopping center with the wind blowing his coat open, tossing his braid about his face, while the mass below turned its collective attention from him and onto the thundering swarm of meat, rolling and consuming the distance between them. The two tore each other apart when they met. Jon looked on with such desperate exhaustion that Martin could feel it even a safe distance away on the street. Still, he _watched_ all the same.

Martin watches, too, as Jon body-slams his way through disaster after disaster with the manic energy of a deathbed sinner counting out his Hail Marys. His knee is _still_ giving him shit from the time he blew it out sprinting from a Hunter, so he just wraps himself in his little cloak of Lonely and tags along behind, trying not to feel too useless. They can’t all be Avatars, after all. 

This being the case, when Martin notices that they’re drifting much further east than they’d originally planned- much further east than is strictly _natural-_ he just sighs and points it out to Jon, who nods and doodles a little spider in Martin’s beat up notebook in response before settling his head onto Martin’s lap for one of his naps. It’s not much more than a black dot, and it has an extra leg because Jon was already halfway asleep. Martin smiles at it before shutting the journal and folding up their map so he can keep watch. So much for Oxford.

It’s not a difficult walk, and it becomes even easier when they pick up a guide halfway through the day: a pale, blonde woman who pops up across the field they’re crossing like she’d grown there, staring blankly at them and not so much as twitching when Martin draws his machete from his belt, shifts his grip on his cane to use it as a bludgeon. She’s still a good handful of meters from them, so he doesn’t lash out, instead getting Jon behind him and waiting until Jon mumbles in his ear, “Spider. Think it needs us to follow.”

Martin doesn’t put his machete away, but does loosen his grip, drop his arm to his side. She bolts the second they start to close the distance, darting down to the edge of the woods and waiting there, head twisted back towards them, watching with those placid, dead eyes like a startled deer deciding whether or not to keep running. Martin was glad for both her clothes and the season- her blue puffy vest was a shock of polyester color amid the brown and green-grey landscape that made her easy to keep track of.

Nowhere does the dry, dead autumn quite like England, he thinks, let alone for near as long. He’s grateful for that. The season can drag on as long as it damn well wants; he isn’t ready for another winter. He doesn’t think he ever will be.

It’s coming up on evening when they reach their destination, their guide doing her spooked-prey stop-and-stare on the steps of an old stone church. The blue and brass clock on the tower is stuck at half-past three. They hover outside the gate for a moment, uncomfortably exposed, before Martin takes the initiative and hops it- those hinges are terribly rusty, and he wants to avoid making them shriek. There’s no telling what’s nearby. He grits his teeth as his knee complains at him- it’s going to rain tomorrow, he thinks, but he doesn’t unstrap his cane from his pack. He’d put it there an hour ago to scale a short cliff, likely created by the Buried crunching some earth together to swallow something up. He catches Jon by his hips on the way down, helps him land, and Jon huffs at him before squeezing his hand in thanks. 

Their guide is still silently watching them as they crunch up the dirt path. The whole town is eerily quiet - usually there’s a band of survivors roaming, or at least an agent or aspect of one of the powers, but there’s _nothing_ , no sign of life or undeath _._ The quaint Tudor buildings are solemn, hollow things. The shedding tree branches rustle and whistle softly in the slight wind, mournful. It’s barren enough to make Martin shudder and press closer to Jon. He doesn’t think they’ll have to tie their hands together as there’s no fog, but it’s a little too close to the Lonely for comfort.

Jon reaches out and tangles their fingers, their gloves a soft rasp of brushed leather, and even though Martin can’t feel his body heat through the thick material, it’s enough to make him let go of some of the tension that’s been creeping up his spine. They cross the invisible line of too-close and their guide opens the old wooden door. She leaves it ajar as she slips behind it without a sound.

The door doesn’t creak the rest of the way open, even though it _feels_ as though it should. It exhales a breath of warm, dry air against their exposed skin as they duck inside, Jon drawing his knife and clutching it tight, point down and ready to strike. His eyes are narrowed in the half-dark, and Martin thinks Jon is baring his teeth. He can’t quite tell because of the bandana over his mouth and nose- protection against the Watcher, as scant as it is; Jonah’s less likely to Watch them if he can’t immediately pick them out. The interior is dark and dusty, and Martin can feel hundreds of invisible cobwebs catching at him as he walks into the nave, Jon behind him, hand in hand. 

“Hello, boys,” someone says. 

They look up.

A young woman drifts down from the ceiling, a hand in the air like she’s holding onto an invisible rope, one foot braced out. She’s dressed in a simple sharply tailored black jumpsuit. A silver body chain crosses it in angular patterns, pearls dangling from the connecting rings, and the bottom of her kitten heels are a hot red. As she crosses through a beam of the setting sun, Martin can see that she’s gripping a single thread, glimmering between her dark fingers, abseiling with it looped thrice around the ball of her foot. Their guide stands next to the altar watching her, hands loose by her sides, her face quiet.

On the ceiling there are huge nets of webs, supporting thick white shapes, distended and stretched. Martin _knows_ by the pit in his stomach that they’re egg sacs.

“Thank you,” she tells their guide once she touches the floor, running a single finger down the woman's cheek. Their guide nods once, then walks to the wall and scrambles up into the webs on the ceiling, where, as Martin watches, hundreds of tiny brown shapes appear from the crevices in the stone to wrap her up in silk.

“Annabelle,” Jon says after a pause, voice a bit rusty with disuse. Martin can tell from the tone of his voice that he’s curling his upper lip into a bit of a sneer, and suddenly has to smother a giggle. “That was certainly… _dramatic.”_

“Some of us have an aesthetic, Jon,” Annabelle Cane says, sounding slightly miffed. “You should respect the motif. _All the world’s a stage_ \- quite literally nowadays, thanks to _your_ lot, and I’m nothing if not a performer.” She leans an elbow on the altar and crosses one foot over the other, shrugging. “If I’m being perfectly honest with you, I almost put on a nun costume for this little tête-à-tête. But then I realized I’d be about as bad as your Jonah, and I simply couldn’t abide by that. Did you know he found himself an actual _crown?_ I’m both disgusted and _delighted._ I can’t decide if he has panache or if he’s being terribly gauche.”

Martin feels himself bristle at _your Jonah,_ as if Jonah is _their_ anything beyond their _tormenter,_ but Jon squeezes his hand,so he doesn’t say anything. “You can take your masks off,” Annabelle continues, brushing her hair back away from her face, revealing the cracked egg of her skull, the white threads bending inwards, betraying its hollowness. “The Watcher can’t see you in here.”

Martin and Jon both shoot glances at each other. Martin sets his jaw in refusal, clicks his tongue in _better not,_ and Jon nods. Neither of them move.

“I don’t have to _ask,_ boys,” Annabelle says, reproachful. “I was _trying_ to be _nice.”_

Jon exhales and drags the bandana down to his neck, so Martin does the same.

“Better,” she says. 

Martin raises an eyebrow at Jon, who knocks his temple gently against his shoulder in response. “She isn’t lying,” Jon tells him, a ghost of a smile on his face. “It’s quiet here.” Jon puts the knife away to take off one of his gloves with his teeth, then scratches the bridge of his nose. “Less of a headache than usual,” he continues. “It’s, ah… nice, honestly.” It’s so good to see him fully again that Martin has to physically hold himself back from kissing him then and there. Martin brings their hands up to his lips and kisses the back of Jon’s hand instead, smiling back at him.

“You’re quite welcome,” Annabelle says, desert-dry. “Are you lovebirds done? We have things to discuss.”

Martin feels himself go pink. “What do you need, Annabelle?” Jon asks, rolling his eyes and rubbing his thumb across Martin’s knuckles. 

“A favor,” she replies. Jon’s eyes go sharp.

“A _favor,”_ he repeats, his grip tightening on Martin’s hand. 

“Yes, Jon,” Annabelle says in a _do-keep-up_ tone, flicking at her hair once more- it’s clearly much more grown out than she’s comfortable with, her black roots obvious against the bleached portion. That empty space in her temple shines silver above moody shadows in the dying light, and Martin does his best not to look at it. It takes more than _that_ to turn his stomach nowadays. Still, there's something deeply unsettling about a woman who is so visibly missing her brain speaking to them despite the absence. “I can assure you, a favor from me is a _very_ powerful thing to be owed.”

“What do you want us to do?” Jon asks. Martin settles into his usual position of watchdog, as is typical whenever they get found by another Avatar. He stands, watches, listens, mumbles his thoughts into Jon’s ear, gently pulling the situation back into their favor with Jon operating as his mouthpiece- Avatars don’t tend to listen to regular humans. Quite a few of them seem to think of him as a charming toy Jon’s keeping around for kicks. Martin can’t complain: most Avatars know Jon is uniquely terrible at manipulation, so their consistent underestimation has allowed Martin to save them both and convince the avatar they owe a favor while doing it. He’s the ace slipped up Jon’s sleeve, the knife held behind his back.

He clocks the exits: behind them, to either side of the pews in the middle, but there’s no telling if those are locked. If they can’t go back the way they came, there’s always the windows, which shouldn’t be too hard to shatter.

Annabelle gestures vaguely about them, and Martin can see near-invisible threads tied around her joints, like a marionette. “The Watchers Crown,” she says. “I would like you to undo it.”

“We’ve _tried,”_ Jon snarls, and Martin tightens his grip on his hand. “There’s nothing to be done about it.” 

There really isn’t, and by God _have_ they tried: the Institute is simply too big to topple and Jonah just has too many eyes to gouge out, nowadays. Their other options haven’t panned out, or are too _unfair_ to go through with, so they haven’t made another attempt in a while. There’s simply too much labor in the act of staying alive to focus on anything else.

“You haven’t had my help, nor the Mother’s,” Annabelle says. “It _is_ a tad bit too late now, I must admit. We are well _past_ the window of opportunity to unfuck ourselves, I’m afraid, but there’s still… _time.”_ She doesn’t laugh, but there’s still an air of a joke about her. “If you’re willing to _travel_ to find it.”

There’s a beat of silence, Annabelle clearly waiting for something.

“Oh my God,” Martin says suddenly. Jon is staring at her blankly, either uncomprehending or flabbergasted. “Are you seriously suggesting - you’re not,” he continues, because she _can’t_ be, he _must_ be misreading the situation somehow. “You have to be joking,” he says, desperate, “You’re not suggesting _time travel.”_

Annabelle cocks a perfectly-manicured eyebrow, smiling serenely, and Jon bursts into hysterical laughter. Martin sheaths his machete and lets go of Jon to put his face in his hands.

“You can’t-,” 

“If I can shunt someone into another dimension,” Annabelle says, cutting Jon off, “What makes you think I can’t send the two of you back within our own? You _Know_ I can do it, Jon.”

Martin looks down at Jon, hoping for him to shake his head, denying it, but he’s looking at Annabelle with a level, serious look on his face, nostrils flaring. _Jesus Christ._ Martin wants to throw up.

_“What’s in it for you?”_ Jon snaps out, and Martin can _feel_ the compulsion sharpening his tongue, strong enough to make the air prickle and Jon’s pupils flare a brilliant reflective white, and _fuck,_ Jon, this is _her place of power,_ you _idiot -_

There’s a _crack_ of bone as Annabelle steps down from the altar, Martin shoving in front of Jon as she becomes taller, her spine elongating until she’s towering over them, arms bursting from beneath and above her shoulders, another pair just above her waist. She flicks a hand and Martin feels himself taking a step away from Jon. He throws an arm out behind him, trying to grab hold, panicked.

_“Please,”_ Martin gasps, “We’re sorry, we didn’t -,”

“Quiet,” Annabelle says. Her voice sounds the same, which shouldn’t be possible with the thick, black fangs emerging from her mouth, extending down to her chin. Six other eyes peel open across her forehead and cheekbones, staring down at them. Martin opens his mouth to apologize again, but no sound comes out. His hand drops to his side.

He walks until his back hits the rough wall across the room, stopping him short. Jon looks so terribly small, standing in front of her distorted form, hand white-knuckled around the hilt of his knife but not drawing it, staring up at her, his whole body taut as piano wire. Martin desperately wants to lunge for him, but his body stays still, relaxed, easy and quiet.

Annabelle stops in front of Jon, her head held high and haughty, before grabbing the back of his head with one hand to crane his head upwards. “Do not,” she says, perfectly calm, enunciating very clearly, “Attempt to compel me, Jonathan. Not only does it not _work,_ but it makes me so _very_ angry.”

She bends down until they’re almost nose to nose, Jon’s head craning upwards, putting her fangs so terribly close to his skin. _“Do you understand me?”_

“Yes,” Jon rasps, almost before she’s finished speaking. “Yes, I-I understand.”

There is a long pause where the only sound is Martin’s harsh breathing, loud and echoing off the stone walls, although it certainly doesn’t _feel_ like he’s getting any oxygen. Annabelle reaches out and Martin’s stomach _drops,_ his throat closing on a scream. She taps the fingertips of one of her many hands against Jon’s forehead, like she’s thinking. Her fingers are much longer than they should be, tipped with delicate black claws that _must_ be scraping his skin with how she drags them upwards. Jon’s whole body trembles ever so slightly, his shoulders drawn back and tight, legs locked into half a crouch as though he wants to leap back, but can’t quite do so.

“Good,” she says. Jon’s body goes relaxed too, walking to sit in a pew, folding his hands into his lap like a proper churchgoer. Annabelle’s spine _cracks_ again, and she’s back to her normal height, but she keeps the arms. She puts one foot up on the armrest and sets the elbow of her lowest pair of arms atop it, settles her chin into the palm of her hand and smiles sweetly, fangs gone, eight eyes still unblinking. “Let us talk shop then, shall we?”

Her instructions are simple, in the end, though Martin can’t claim to be particularly focused on them. He’s busy watching Jon, who appears to be actually listening to her. They are to go to the house on Hill Top Road in a month’s time; she’ll meet them there. They will go back to when they had just begun working in the Archives, and from there, they will have a full day to kill Jonah Magnus, because she’s feeling generous. If they die in the meantime- which they should not, she assures them, as she’s apparently been speaking to Oliver Banks- she will be _very angry_ with them indeed. Martin thinks about pointing out that they’ll be _dead,_ but he still can’t talk. Annabelle could probably figure out how to make them miserable even after they’re gone, so he shouldn’t encourage her anyway. She’ll be keeping Jonah in his office until they get around to him, she promises, drumming her fingers against her cheek.

“How?” Jon asks. His voice is quiet in the way that it gets when he’s trying not to sound upset. He keeps going to look at Martin before his eyes snap back to Annabelle’s face. It’s been a _while_ since they’ve been this far apart, and Martin can tell by his twitchiness that Jon hates it just as much as he does. “Are you… crossing back over with us?”

Annabelle chuckles. “No, I’ll already be there,” she says. “Myself and I have been exchanging letters. She’s quite funny, actually. Very witty. She’ll be taking care of that for you, don’t you worry. She was eager to help us out.”

Jon nods, glancing once more at Martin- this time, Annabelle lets him. Martin tries to smile reassuringly, but his face won’t emote. He tries to at _least_ make eye contact, but his gaze refuses to meet Jon’s. 

“We aren’t coming back from this,” Jon says, gaze heavy. His eyes are as piercing as ever, even half-invisible in the twilight. A statement, not a question. “Are we?”

“...This particular future will disappear, yes,” Annabelle says after a pause. “These particular iterations of us with it- we won’t die, of course, I know about your little anti-suicide pact. We’ll simply… revert. Like hitting a reset button on a game. I am _asking_ you, though, Jon,” she notes. One hand goes up to brush her hair away from the crack in her skull again, two others wringing in front of her. “That is much more than I have ever given anyone else. I could have just… dropped the idea in your heads. You can say _no,_ this way. I mean, I’ll have to find someone else if you do- Basira, perhaps? Or Melanie and Georgie-,”

_“No,”_ Jon bursts out, “No, don’t bother them, they don’t deserve- this isn’t their mess to clean. Martin, is that okay with- Annabelle, _please,”_ Jon says, desperate now, gesturing at Martin with one hand, the other dragging down his face. “I want to talk- I have to _talk-,”_

Martin’s throat unlocks with a small, wet noise, and he drags in a huge breath. “It’s okay,” he says immediately, “Jon, it’s alright - we can - whatever you need. Whatever you need to do. I trust you. I think it’s… I think it’s the right thing.”

“Well?” Annabelle asks, spreading one set of her hands out, as though waiting for them to physically hand her the answer. “The choice is yours.”

The church is so quiet that Martin thinks he can hear the spiders above them, their little legs tapping against the stone, the stretch of their silk still as they wrap the woman who lead them here in layer after layer of web.

“We’ll do it,” Jon says, with all the finality of a guillotine hitting a neck.

Annabelle takes her foot off the pew and clasps all her hands together, smiling beatifically. “Wonderful,” she says, backing up. “I knew you’d say yes.”

“Did we really have a choice?” Martin mumbles from where he’s still stuck against the wall. 

Annabelle smiles at him. _“Did_ you?” she asks. “Jon here remembers my cute little lecture on _free will._ Perhaps you should ask him.” Then she flicks a hand.

It’s a real struggle not to _sprint_ across the room towards Jon- he manages to tone it down into a brisk power walk, and Jon jogs the last few feet. He _does_ use the ensuing hug to pick Jon up and move him bodily until Martin is between him and Annabelle, but some things can’t really be helped. Jon keeps a tight grip on Martin’s jacket as he brushes Jon’s flyaway hairs aside to inspect his forehead, one arm securely around Jon’s shoulders and half an eye on Annabelle. There’s a few faintly reddened lines. They fade as Martin watches, abraized skin smoothing itself back down. He presses a fierce kiss to them and pulls Jon in a little closer.

“Thank you, boys,” Annabelle says over her shoulder as she walks back towards the altar. “You’re welcome to spend the night here, if you’d wish, though the town is rather safe if you’d like to find another spot. But, well,” she shrugs all of her shoulders. “I’m not in control of _everything_ that goes bump in the night. You’ll find nowhere more secure than my little nest.”

“Annabelle,” Martin calls just as she’s opening a window, moving like she’s going to step out of it. “Why?” he asks, because he knows Jon’s question will eat at him until it’s answered, the unknown bit of knowledge like a grain of sand in his eye. “What do you get out of this? You helped Jonah organize the Watcher’s Crown in the first place.”

She hops up to sit on the sill, lips quirked to the side. “Hm,” she says. “Since you asked so _nicely,_ Martin, I’ll be honest: 

“I thought it would be more fun than it actually _is._ This whole world is _deathly_ boring. There’s so little _fear_ for me - everyone already _knows_ they’re being manipulated, so they don’t bother to _fight._ Everyone just does what I say in the blind hope that maybe, _maybe,_ I’ll leave them alone if they do. And I’m _so_ terribly bored of it; it’s just too _easy.”_ Annabelle reaches down with one arm and grabs a black umbrella from where it was leaning against the wall, opening it with a flick of her wrist. It’s patterned with a glittering silver spiderweb, spooling out from the top, which is pointed dramatically like a parasol. She twirls it for a moment before looking back up.

“I’d like to have some _fun_ again, and if it means _breaking_ pompous little Jonah Magnus to do it, well.” She shrugs once more and smiles oh-so sweetly, her teeth a shock of white in the blue gloom of the night. “What’s the harm? Spiders do their best work when they aren’t being _observed,_ after all, and I think the world is tired of _kings_.”

“...Of course,” Martin says, and does not ask, _is it ready for a queen?_

“We’ll be in touch,” Annabelle tells them both, then sticks her umbrella out the window and drifts off into the sky.

It’s quiet for a long minute.

“... Do you think the umbrella is really necessary, or…?” Martin asks. Jon snickers, then whistles a few bars of _A Spoonful of Sugar,_ making Martin let out an unexpected bark of laughter.

“Some of us have an _aesthetic,_ Martin,” Jon mimics, turning Martin’s shoulder grip back into a hug. “Respect the _motif.”_

Martin presses his face into Jon’s greasy hair, his exhale shuddering with both laughter and the dregs of adrenaline. “I’m _so fucking mad_ at you,” Martin tells him, doing his best to actually sound cross and squeezing him until Jon lets out a soft _oof._ _“Compelling_ her, _really?_ Are you absolutely _insane?_ We can’t just _do_ these things!”

“We needed to be _sure_ -,” Jon starts immediately.

“Be sure of _what?”_ Martin continues over him, “That she could still totally _kill_ us? We’re in one of her places of _power!_ Seriously, Jon!”

Jon snuffles into Martin’s sweater, moving one hand to pinch at Martin’s side. _“Reconnaissance doesn’t hurt us,_ to quote _someone_ I know -,”

“Oh, don’t you throw that back at me, Jon,” Martin huffs. He slips a hand under Jon’s backpack to run it down his spine, soothing. “This is different and you know it.”

Jon sighs gustily into Martin’s chest, his breath warm through the layers of fabric. “I know,” he says quietly. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Martin says. “We didn’t _die,_ so it has to be fine. But _Jon.”_

“I know, I know,” Jon mumbles. Martin leans back to rest both of his hands against Jon’s cheeks, and Jon reaches out and pulls Martin’s face down, knocking their foreheads together. “I make you crazy.”

“You do,” Martin agrees, and kisses him, gentle, just a brush of their chapped lips. He pulls back and grabs Jon’s hand as he asks, “Where should we hole up for the night? I would say in here, we could shove two pews together, but, uh,” Martin points a finger up at the ceiling. “I don’t think _that_ will be… _conducive_ to a restful night.”

They end up in the vestry, curling up together in their shared sleeping bag, which is snug, but getting less so all the time. Neither of them can seem to keep weight on, though Jon is faring a little better than Martin is. Something about the Beholding subsumes a bit of his need for actual caloric intake- though not completely, despite Jon’s attempts to wish it so. He’s still alive, and living bodies need calories. 

The room is dark, but not Dark, the simple kind of blackness that doesn’t cling to the corners so much as drape over them like a blanket, heavy and safe with invisibility. The moon had been pooling light in through the window, but the clouds Martin’s knee had been promising him are sweeping in, swollen and hanging low to the earth. There’s a faint hint of ozone picking up below the dry dust smell of the church, crisp and clean.

Martin pulls away from their lazy kisses to sweep some hair out of the other man’s eyes. It’s not often that they get to just _kiss_ like this, between hiding from _Avatars_ and _Entities_ and the bandanas to hide them from Jonah _fucking_ Magnus’ _stupid_ eye in the sky. Sometimes Martin will go days or even weeks without seeing Jon’s nose, only getting flashes of his mouth and chin when they eat. 

It’s not all bad, the masks- sometimes he _does_ think Jon looks unfairly cute, like a bandit from an American old western movie- but he knows that’s a mixture of his leftover childhood desire to be allowed to play cops and robbers with the boys and how absolutely _gone_ on Jon he is. He’s watched Jon pick his teeth with a squirrel’s rib bone before and had only thought _oh, adorable,_ so he really shouldn’t be allowed to judge anything where looks are concerned.

Jon reaches out and grabs Martin’s left hand with his own, taking extra care to knock their rings together. Martin knows he likes the sound it makes, the soft _clack_ of metal on metal, like when Martin taps his knitting needles together as he thinks. They don’t get to hear it too much now with the weather turning bitter; they keep their gloves on more often than not. 

Martin trails the pads of his fingers across Jon’s stubbly cheek, reveling in the feeling of skin against skin as they trace over the old dark scars from Jane Prentiss, which feels- Christ, _forever_ ago. People change as they age, sure, but he can’t even imagine what that Martin _looked_ like, let alone his thoughts, his _feelings._ It seems so very far away. Petty. _Trite._ Jon tips his face up into Martin’s palm with a sigh, his lips wet and puffy where they brush against the heel of Martin’s hand, his fingertips resting up on Jon’s temple.

Martin’s brain chooses then to remind him that _that’s exactly the same spot Annabelle Cane’s head was split open,_ and Martin makes a face.

“What?” Jon breathes, eyes slitted.

“Sorry,” Martin says, “Not you, just… Thinking.”

“Oh, _dangerous,”_ Jon says. Martin taps his thumb on Jon’s nose, smiling. “Sure you have the right equipment for that?” he continues, raising an eyebrow, and Martin drags his hand down to cover Jon’s mouth, giggling.

“Shut up,” Martin says. “Mighty big words from someone who tried to compel _Annabelle Cane_ in her _own house_ not two hours ago, _Jon.”_

Jon licks Martin’s palm, which makes Martin pull away with one final tap on the end of Jon’s nose and a noise of mock-disgust. It’s not actually gross; a little _spit_ isn’t going to bother Martin, not after everything else they’ve been through. At least it’s not _pus._ “I didn’t say _I_ had the right equipment,” Jon replies. “Maybe I wanted to borrow some of yours. You never know.”

“Unfortunately, if smarts were communicable I’d have shared them with you by now,” Martin says. “We’re probably out of luck there.”

“A man can dream,” Jon replies, bringing Martin’s knuckles to his mouth, brushing his lips across the cracked skin. They take the time to kiss for a few more minutes before Martin yawns, jaw cracking, and Jon takes it as his cue to push up and sit with his back to the wall to keep watch.

Martin’s starting to drift off when Jon’s narrow fingers tug gently on one of his curls, pulling him back into wakefulness. “Martin,” Jon says, tight and worried.

Martin rolls back over to face him, a little trill of _alert_ thrumming down his spine. He moves to sit up, tapping twice on the back of Jon’s hand- _something coming?_ \- and Jon grabs his hand to still it.

“Are you… are you sure about this?” he asks. “Going back, I mean. Martin, it’s…” He trails off, then exhales sharply. “It is…”

“I know what it is, Jon,” Martin replies quietly. “It’s okay. If we can fix this… we have to try, right? We can’t afford _not_ to.”

“I _know,”_ Jon says, his voice miserable and almost wet. The rain has started to rap politely on the roof above their heads. “I’m okay with it. I just… I need to know you’re sure. I need to know we’re sure.”

Martin listens to the rain for a few moments, curling his fingers protectively into Jon’s. He presses his forehead against Jon’s boney hip, tears prickling at his eyes. “I don’t know if I can do another winter,” Martin admits. “Just the thought- God, just the _thought_ makes me feel wretched.” 

Jon makes a sympathetic little noise, his free hand settling against the side of Martin’s neck, feeling the pulse. 

“It’ll eat you alive if we don’t,” Martin murmurs, barely audible as the rain picks up. “It’ll eat _us_ alive. We have to _try,_ at least. I think… I think it’ll be alright.”

Jon scratches his nails through Martin’s hair and sits quietly for a few minutes.

“Yes,” Jon says finally, tremulous, as Martin’s eyes slip shut. “I think it’ll be nice, for all this to be over. We can rest.”

-

The month passes with an agonizing slowness after they leave Annabelle’s church, shaking _far_ too many spiders out of their bags for even _Martin_ to be comfortable with as they do so. They try to go back not even a day later, when one of Jon’s migraines begins to build, holding onto half a hope that a place shielded from the Eye would help them weather the worst of it. Soften the blow. 

The only thing in the building is a man, naked, thin and tall with no face save for a mouth, chewing his way into a human corpse next to the altar, upon which there no longer sat a cross - just a tape recorder, whirring softly as it listens to the thick sounds of tearing meat. _The Flesh, of course,_ Martin thinks with a sigh - he’s always been of the opinion that the thing with the body of Christ was a _little_ too on the nose. The man turns to face them, a strip of muscle dangling from between his many molars, dead blood bubbling down his chin as he breathes around his mouthful. 

Martin shuts the door before he can get a good look at them, standing in the doorway. There’s no sign that the Web had ever been there.

_“Corpus Christi,”_ Jon mumbles, breaths coming in hot pants, one hand over his eyes and the other with a deathgrip on Martin’s fingers, leaning heavily into his side. _“Salva me. Sang- Sanguis Christi, inebria me -,”_

Martin pulls Jon’s blindfold from his bag and slips it over his face. He’s careful to keep Jon’s hair out of the knot as he ties it, tugging him back over the gate and away as Jon staggers and grinds out the _Anima Christi. “Intra tua vulnera absconde me,”_ Jon spits, gagging, moments before his knees give out.

They spend the next day and a half hiding in a building across the street, curled up on a stained, bare mattress on the floor in a closet of a room, blood splatter dried on the whitewashed walls. Jon keeps his face tucked into Martin’s stomach as he mutters about _transubstantiation_ and _the most holy communion_ between pained whines, his fingers ripping through the fabric of the mattress as the weight of _Sight_ becomes too much for his brain to handle. 

Martin just does his best to stay quiet and still, swallowing down every comforting word desperate to come out of his mouth- Jon’s hypersensitive to sound, and the slightest shifting makes him flinch and whine. He manages to keep the sips of water that Martin coaxes him into drinking down this time, though, so Martin will count it as a win. Maybe the migraines are getting better. 

Maybe they’ll go away.

(They’re not, and they won’t, he knows, but it won’t kill him to have hope.)

They stop in at Basira’s base on their way to Hill Top Road, a guard keeping them at the doors and pressing a knife into the skin of their forearms as they wait for Basira to come down and confirm their identities, their bandanas cast off and tied to the straps of their bags. There’s no point hiding here, Basira uses the Eye like a shield, like a knife. Jon always looks like he can’t decide between it bringing him pain or relief.

“Sorry,” she tells them both with a small smile, no teeth. “The Stranger’s been quite active around here recently- we have to take some precautions. You know how it is.”

“Ah, what’s one more for the collection?” Jon says, and the little note of levity in his voice is as close as he gets to a joke these days. He immediately sets to fussing over the blood oozing down Martin’s arm, getting one of their clean rags out of the plastic bag they’re stored in and putting pressure on the small wound. Jon’s cut has already scabbed over- Martin watches the guard note it with narrowed eyes, not putting her knife down. Martin shifts his grip on his cane and moves his other hand to hang over the hilt of his machete. Jon’s eyes flicker between the two of them, and he purses his lips into a thin line.

They’re rescued from their subtle posturing by Basira and Melanie exiting the building, Basira blinking in the watery sunlight while Melanie shuts her foggy eyes as she removes one thick gardening glove with her teeth, the other hand holding her white cane. 

“Allison,” Basira greets the guard, before scanning Jon and Martin over. Martin gives her a little wave, and her mouth twists into something that might have made an attempt at being a smile, years ago. She raises a hand at the guard in _stand down,_ which the guard does, albeit with a wary glance at Jon. 

“Jon, we’re outgrowing this building,” Basira says, turning on her heels to walk back inside, tapping Melanie twice on the elbow as she does so. All of them fall in behind her. “Where else in the area could we set up?” she continues once they’re through the doors.

Jon’s face screws up in concentration as he trots off after her, not noticing Martin’s attempt to plant a kiss on his temple as he passes. He goes to follow the two of them, but Melanie scoffs slightly. 

“Best not,” she says. “Basira’s had her shit in a twist about moving for a month now, she’ll get irritated if you distract him. She’s got Georgie in on it too, it’s all they’ll talk about. They’ll be a while.”

“...Right,” Martin says after a pause, watching them walk down the white-and-red tiled hallway. Basira’s long legs and rapid clip have Jon- who is nearly a full foot shorter than her- moving at a half jog. Martin’s knee would give out on him if he tried that today. “Right. Hi, Melanie. Can I give you a hug?”

Melanie clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes in an attempt to hide her smile. “I’ll allow it,” she says, opening her arms. 

For all her bluster she lets him sink into the hug, her free hand stroking warmly down his back. “Good to see you,” he mumbles into her ear. 

“Good to see you too,” she replies, squeezing him once more before letting go. “You smell god-awful, Blackwood. _Jesus.”_

“Do I?” Martin asks, which, he probably does. Not much in the way of showers anymore, and a lot of the water has gone Dark and brackish, so they have to reserve what’s nominally clean for drinking. He goes to sneakily smell his own pits before remembering that Melanie can’t see him and abandoning discretion. “I can’t smell it, but I can’t smell much of anything since-,”

“Yes, yes, the burning car battery, I remember,” Melanie interrupts. She slaps him on the bicep before turning to walk down the hall in the opposite direction Basira and Jon went. “Come help me in the garden; maybe the dirt will drown out your stink.”

Martin assumes it won’t, but he follows her anyway. “How have you been?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder, although Jon has long since vanished around the corner. He can feel anxiety beginning to prickle between his shoulder blades, a pull like a tether leading back to Jon. The Beholding settles the weight of its gaze on the back of his neck as they pass disconnected security cameras that move to track their path down the hall.

Melanie grunts, shrugging. “Same old,” she says. Her cane clicks off a crack in a tile as it skitters across the floor, and Martin can feel himself clenching his jaw. He looks over his shoulder again. Jon is, of course, still gone. “We keep losing folks, which is bad, but nothing new. The kid you two dragged in last time is settling in fine though, I’ll see if Georgie can scrounge her up. And I’ve got- uh, I can differentiate between bright and dark now, if it’s a big enough jump.” 

“Really?” Martin asks, looking at her sharply, startled out of the beginnings of an anxious spiral. “Are you - is that -,”

“Doctors told me it might happen, if I got ‘lucky’,” she replies, her lip curling slightly and air quotes audible. Her cane hits the end of the hallway, and she turns sharply right, running her cane along the baseboard. Martin glances back once more, biting down on his lip. “The Eye isn’t interested in me still, though, so that’s alright I s’pose.” She reaches a door frame and all but shoves him through it. 

“You know, my old flatmate Andy used to have a toy poodle,” she tells him conversationally, as if it’s not a total non sequitur. 

“What?” Martin asks, squinting at the courtyard they’ve converted to a garden. Most everything is dry and dead, and about half of it has already been cleared up for the winter. 

“Yeah,” she says, walking towards a corner with metal tomato cages stuck into the ground, the plants inside them dry and dead. “I’ve never really liked dogs, especially the little ones. If it’s small enough to punt like a football it’s just not a dog, y’know? But-,”

_“Melanie!”_ Martin says, scandalized.

_“But,”_ Melanie continues, blithely ignoring him, “He was cute, when Andy was home. When he left… well.” She shakes her head, picking her way over to a rusty metal folding chair. “Tore the place apart. We got _so_ many noise complaints, and we didn’t get the safety deposit back. Little guy just couldn’t stand being without him.”

Martin stops and stares at her for a few seconds, baffled. “Wh-,”

“What I’m saying is you’re a toy poodle with separation anxiety, and the energy that’s coming off of you right now is giving me _hives,”_ Melanie tells him, sitting down in the chair. “It’s not good for you to live in his asscrack, you get all…,” she waves a hand at him, then crosses her legs, trapping her cane between her knees. “Like _this._ The codependence is nasty. And the bastard’s with _Basira,_ he’s _fine._ Even if he wasn’t, he’s damn near indestructible anyways. Please relax. And start pulling the dead stuff out of the cages, please, it goes over in the wheelbarrow. It’s good kindling.”

Martin huffs at her, and she huffs right back, louder. He gets to work. 

It’s relaxing, honestly, the monotony of it; ripping the plants from the ground, shaking off the dirt. His shoulders begin to ache satisfyingly. He and Melanie keep up a friendly chatter until she decides to take a nap in her chair, and then he has to sit down as his knee and lower back start complaining, but it’s nice. 

It reminds him of Scotland, of looking out at the safehouse’s scrubby little plot that could have once been called a garden, now mostly crabgrass and thistle with a few snarled, ragged rose bushes, and thinking, _in the spring we should plant a garden._ He’s never had the best luck with indoor plants- he’s tried succulents and indoor herb gardens, all of which had withered and died- but he’d thought maybe having it outdoors would be different. He’d liked the image he’d had of Jon in long sleeves and thick gloves, swearing at the thistle with a trowel in hand, his greying hair up in a braid that Martin did for him. 

They’d spend the morning clearing it out- maybe the day, maybe multiple days, he wasn’t sure how much work it’d actually be, having never had a garden before- and go in for lunch, which Martin would cook, Jon teasing him at the rickety dining table. On second thought, maybe by then they would have replaced it, or gotten a nice tablecloth to cover up the sallow, cheap wood, ringed with water stains and scorched in spots. 

Maybe they’d eat outside on a quilt in the chilly spring air. Maybe they’d trundle down to the hardware store in their tiny powdery blue 2002 Toyota, Martin at the wheel. Unless he’d taught Jon how to drive by then, and if he hadn’t, Jon would backseat drive the whole way (one of his few habits that Martin does _not_ find endearing). They’d pick up the basics: tools, wooden boards, potting soil. They’d go home with the back seats folded and hatchback open so the boards they’d bungee-corded down would fit. They’d make some raised beds in the backyard, for vegetables and herbs. They’d live quietly. It’d be nice- it’s nice to put labor into a place, your sweat into the earth, he thinks, to tie yourself down with hard work.

Martin would have Jon, dirt smeared and smiling, and they’d make friends with their neighbors, and they’d curl up in bed together at night and be _happy._ Hopefully they would have said _I love you_ by then, but who knows- neither of them were good with their words, which was a problem that plagued Martin as a poet- and without a push, who knows how long it could have taken? They could have danced around each other for months, years, decades maybe, sharing a home and a life and their joy without speaking of it, thinking- _he must know what I mean._

Now, in the after, there is no room for error, for ambiguity. There’s not a place to bury what they mean or hide it behind a roundabout monologue. They have to say _I love you_ when they feel it, when they mean it, because luck changes so quickly. Because there’s no guarantee they can say it later, clarify after. This could be the last moment they live to see. They can’t guarantee that they won’t miss their chance to tell the other- _I love you. You are important to me._ _I care. I_ love _you._

Words take time, and time runs out.

Martin did get pieces of his idyllic countryside daydream, in the end. Jon with dirt smeared over his face, ground underneath his nails. Jon’s hair in braids that Martin did for him, brushing his hair in long, smooth strokes. Jon in thick gloves and long sleeves, swearing at thistle. Eating with him outside in the cold air. Not how he wanted it, though. Everything comes to him at a slant. He can get what he wants, but _never_ how he wants it- it has to hurt.

Still, it’s nice to be here, with friends. It’s nicer yet when Jon, Basira, and Georgie all come out an hour or so later. Jon jogs over to Martin as he struggles to his feet, pulling Martin into a hug and bending him down to kiss him on the forehead before settling down to help him. Melanie gets out of her chair just so she can sit down in Georgie’s lap, and Basira goes to find another chair, saying _might as well get some labor out of you lot_ with a smile on her face, more relaxed than Martin had seen her in a very long time.

“How are you guys out here?” Georgie asks, pressing a kiss to Melanie’s cheekbone. 

“Oh, we’re alright,” Melanie says. She leans into the kiss, then further into Georgie’s side. “Just making Martin cry, as per usual.”

Martin makes an affronted noise. “You do _not_ make me cry,” he says, crossing his arms.

One of Melanie’s eyebrows climbs so high it’s in danger of entering her hairline. “Remember the time when we got in an argument abo-,”

“Fine, yes, you _have_ made me cry in the past,” Martin says quickly. “But not in years! It’s not my fault I’m an angry crier!”

“Being an angry crier just means you’re a bitch who can’t fight,” Melanie deadpans, and Basira laughs, covering her eyes with her hand. She’s lost a tooth since the last time he saw her, a dark gap in the straight bottom row of them.

As he watches Jon duck his head and chuckle at Georgie’s response, he wishes- not for the first time- that they could just stay here. It’s a dangerous world, but it’s safer in places like this, where there’s _love._ Jon grunts with exertion as he pulls a tomato plant free with a ripping sound. He shakes the soil off its roots before dropping it in front of Martin, who grabs Jon’s hand and squeezes it in thanks, reveling in the smile he gets in return. 

They can’t, he knows. Jon gets _hungry._ They’ve managed to pare statements down to the newer Avatars and simply watching the world go to pieces, and there’s none of that here. They travel so _relentlessly_ because Jon needs sustenance. They can’t settle into a home somewhere out of the way to live their lives, or unleash him, hungry, onto a building full of people desperate for safety and stability, who are carving out a home in this new world. 

They’d tried, once, directly after Martin blew his knee out, to have Jon range about to feed with Martin tucked away in Basira’s compound. They both agreed that maybe it would be better, that Jon could swing by and visit. Be greeted with open arms and Martin’s warm bed, stay a few days and swing on back out again, to find people, to know, to _feed_. 

It hadn’t worked. Martin had paced relentlessly, just about climbing the walls, irritable and scared, unable to focus. Murmuring into the tape recorders that started sprouting up like daisies wherever he went, _be okay, be okay, please be safe._ Hoping Jon could hear him. 

Jon showed up three days later, teeth gritted and shaking like a leaf. They’d left together immediately- Martin had never bothered to unpack his bag. It doesn’t work. It won’t work. They have to be together.

“Hey,” Martin says, quiet, tapping two fingers against the outside of Jon’s wrist as he goes to yank on a stubbornly wound branch. “Did you tell them?” he asks, jerking his head towards the others. Basira’s hands are on her hips in mock disapproval as she looks down at the two of them with one heavy boot up on her chair, Georgie snickering and Melanie smirking like a crocodile, an arm around Georgie’s shoulders. “About- you know.”

Past the cheerful surface, Georgie looks weary, her eyes hollow and sunken deep. Basira’s strung out even relaxed like this- she keeps stretching and popping her jaw with a _click_ Martin can hear from here, her fingers, bitten raw, clenching and unclenching on her thighs. Melanie is coping as best she can, but he’s heard her wake up screaming when they’ve stayed here overnight before. They deserve happiness. Rest. 

“Hm?” Jon says, still looking at the plant, distracted, and then, “Oh. Yes, of course.”

“How’d they take it?”

Jon shrugs. “Basira asked about the collateral- just us, if it fails- and Georgie told me she’d be very angry if we died. They both called me stupid for the Annabelle thing, by the way, so I hope you feel vindicated-,”

“Because that _was_ stupid, Jon-,”

“I’m aware,” Jon says dryly. “Neither of them are too happy about it, but since the possible damage is just us…”

Martin sighs. “Not much they can do to tell us no.”

“We make our own choices,” Jon agrees. “We just have to hope they’re the right ones.”

“I know,” Martin says. He holds Jon’s wrist for a moment, squeezes, lets it drop. “I know.”

They stay a few more hours, until Martin feels a pull at his wrist and looks down to glimpse spider silk for the briefest second, stringing him along towards the exit.

Time to go.

-

It’s night when they finally arrive, or morning, perhaps - they both would have liked to have stopped and waited until daylight, but there’s something that _tugged_ painfully behind Martin’s ribcage like a fishing hook when they pause, so they had to press onwards. It’s not pitch black out, thankfully - the moon is full and close overhead, the stars bright with no light pollution to drown them out. It’s beautiful, almost, the cold bluish moon through the bare trees, glinting off of broken glass from an overturned bin, the long black stretches of shadow. Crisp. Their footsteps echo quietly off the empty houses.

The house on Hill Top Road isn’t very impressive; it’s two and a half stories of dull red brick interspersed with small, square windows, set a bit further back from the road than most of the others. Jon jerks to a stop like a dog that’s run out of lead a half step from the end of the driveway and Martin drops his stance automatically, knees bending, shifting his weight to his back foot, hand on his machete- but Jon’s got his eyes narrowed in confusion, not widened in fear.

_“What?”_ Martin hisses.

“I-,” Jon looks down at his feet, confused. “I can't move.” He takes a step back. “I can’t move _forward,”_ he corrects.

Martin looks up at the house, then back at Jon, whose eyebrows are furrowed in concentration. “Should I… push you?”

“I don’t see why not,” Jon says, but when Martin puts two hands on his shoulders he digs in his heels, so Martin scoops him up like a new bride and steps forward. Jon twists like a greased eel in the bath and slips out of his grasp, all but leaping away from Martin.

They look at each other for a second. “What the _hell?”_ Martin whispers. 

“Maybe… not that, then,” Jon whispers back, a bit wide-eyed. “I… don’t like this.”

_“Me neither,”_ Martin hisses from across whatever invisible electric fence is keeping Jon from the house- it’s not affecting him at all. 

“Maybe you should... throw me?” Jon says, visibly thinking. Martin sees the second something clicks in Jon’s brain, his eyes suddenly rolling in exasperation as he pinches the bridge of his nose through his bandana. _“Christ,_ I _forgot,_ Annabelle ordered me not to come back he-,”

_“What_ are you _doing?!”_ a voice interrupts, hissing from behind them. Martin turns to see Annabelle poking her head out through the open front door. “Standing on the street _gawking_ like a bunch of _tourists,_ what is _wrong_ with you two?”

_“You_ ordered me not to come here!” Jon snaps back in a stage whisper, gesturing violently at the house. “I don’t _want_ to be standing out here! I can’t come _in!”_

A slow grin spreads over her face, and Annabelle opens the door wider, stepping out onto the front stoop. She’s wearing a wedding dress, high necked with butterfly sleeves, pale cream silk and lace, beaded with spiderwebs. “I _did,_ didn’t I!” she says, her answering stage whisper sounding absolutely delighted. “Almost forgot about that!”

“If you wouldn’t _mind,”_ Jon growls. He glowers at her, one hand on his hip.

“Aw, you’re like a vampire,” she coos. Jon glowers harder, hand still waving at the house. Martin bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. 

_“Annabelle,”_ he hisses. 

“Are you here to suck my blood, Mr. Dracula?” Annabelle asks, throwing a wrist over her forehead and swooning against the doorframe like a wealthy Victorian woman with a fit of the vapors. “I’m O negative, if that sweetens the pot.”

Jon gestures more violently at the house, and Martin quickly smothers his laugh with a fake cough. Jon turns on him in wounded betrayal. “Don’t laugh at me!” he hisses.

“I’m not!” Martin says, holding his hands up in surrender, biting his lower lip. “It’s just- you don’t- you don’t have to _gesticulate_ like that, sweetheart,” he continues, and Jon glares at him.

On the front step, Annabelle bends slightly to pat her thighs like she’s calling a puppy. “C’mere!” she chirps at them, high-pitched, but there’s no pull in her words. “C’mon, boys! Come to momma spider!” She whistles. “You can do it!”

“Stop being _childish,_ Annabelle,” Jon snaps. “You’re sending us to our deaths, the least you can do is-,”

Annabelle heaves out a huge breath, straightening up. “Jon, I am _not_ sending you to your _deaths,_ don’t be so dramatic,” she says. “Fine, be like that, no fun allowed. All of you old-guard Avatars are so _boring,_ I miss _Nikola._ _She_ made me laugh. And Oliver at least _tries_ to be funny. Come in, if you’re not going to entertain me.”

Jon steps over the property line with a relieved sigh, then immediately makes an attempt at pretending to be angry, not taking Martin’s offered hand and choosing to stick close to his side instead.

_“Really?”_ Martin asks as they push through the door. He pauses in the entryway and wiggles his fingers at Jon. “I mean, _really?”_

Jon sighs. “No,” he says, threading their fingers together with one hand and swatting Martin lightly in the stomach with the other. _“Laughing_ at me, _rude_ -,”

“You were _cute_ -,” Martin starts to defend himself, slipping his bandana off his face as Jon does the same with his own, then leaning down to kiss him instead. He smiles into it as Jon hums happily, melting against him.

“Oh my God,” Annabelle says. “Are you done? Are we done with the flirting? Can we move on?”

Martin waves his free hand at her before pulling away, pressing a kiss to the crown of Jon’s head as he goes. “Fine, fine,” he says, looking around. There’s… a _lot_ of cobwebs. What he thought at first was soft grey carpet is actually thick webbing, clotted and dusty. It sticks to his feet as he walks. The view through the windows is hazy, and he thinks the walls may be yellow underneath it all. It would probably smell mucid and stale, if he still had a sense of smell.

“I have some questions,” Jon says as they follow Annabelle through the house. “About time travel.” Martin tries to stick closer to Jon, their shoulders brushing, as paranoia begins to prickle at the back of his neck.

“Of course you do,” she says flatly.

“Namely, scientifically speaking-,”

“According to what we’ve been reading-” Martin starts, although _reading_ in this case is really Jon _beholding_ research papers and then regurgitating them for Martin.

“We’ve done our research, and _technically_ -,”

_“Theoretically-,”_

“Someone could travel back in time. Theoretically.” Jon twitches and swipes at his face, clearly having walked directly into a spiderweb.

“Theoretically,” Annabelle agrees, running a hand along the wall as she walks, threads of web dragging with her fingers. Her shadow bends oddly against it, lumpy and unrefined in the near-dark. Cold trickles down Martin’s spine.

“But you shouldn’t be-,”

“Stop,” Annabelle says almost distantly, and Jon closes his mouth abruptly. “Do not tell me anything more about the possibilities of time travel, or the theoreticals, or why it should or shouldn’t work. I can’t know anything about it.”

“That’s _absolutely_ not reassuring,” Martin tells her, not bothering to keep the incredulous note out of his voice. He squeezes Jon’s hand tighter. He thinks he hears something behind them, a quiet brush of a sound, but when he twists to look there’s nothing but empty room.

“I’m not here to be reassuring,” she tells them, turning down the hallway. “The less I know about time travel, the more likely I am to be able to pull this off. Because, right now, I _think_ I can do it, and I _think_ I know how it works, or how it should work. I have worked it out in my own way, where I have not done _calculations_ or thought about _theoreticals,_ and instead simply thought through my plan until I said, ‘yes, that sounds right.’ I would’ve hoped you’d understand by now that _thinking_ you know how to survive something, or create something, or _kill_ something, is _exactly_ the sort of dream logic that the Powers use. If you ruin _everything_ I have been working on for so long because you _still_ do not comprehend either the ruleset at play within the universe we find ourselves in or _when to shut your mouths,_ Jon, Martin, I will be _very angry with you.”_

Annabelle pauses on the first stair and turns towards them, smiling sunnily, and the sight makes Martin freeze like a sighted prey animal. “I suppose we ought to count ourselves lucky I was studying literature in uni and not some sort of science, no?”

She leads them up to the second floor, the steps creaking lowly under their weight, then stops beneath the trap door leading to the attic. It’s been pulled down already, and a metal ladder leads up into the dark.

“You first,” Martin says, when he realizes she’s waiting for them. They can be stupid, yes, but not _quite_ that dumb.

Annabelle sighs. “Fine,” she says, and starts to climb. Her shoes catch Martin’s eye- she’s wearing white Docs, so spotless they might as well have been just removed from the box. 

In fact, all of the _old guard_ Avatars, as Annabelle had called them, the ones who gained their status before the Watcher’s Crown, that Jon and Martin have managed to run into have been dressed immaculately in a way that is absolutely startling. Simon Fairchild popping in on them on a lark, dressed in wingtips and a suit patterned like three very different bowling alley carpets, following them for three blocks and chattering happily about the _winds of change_ before declaring them too interesting to kill, but too boring to hang around any longer before falling upwards. Oliver Banks at the end of a street, solemn faced and stately in a black cloak and velvet turtleneck, shaking his head at them before pointing back the way they were coming from, silver rings flashing on his fingers, his nails painted a deep plum. Helen laughing at them in an alley framed by her open door, her pencil skirt and airy blouse as crisp and eye-searing as ever, asking if they’d like to come in.

Martin supposes if you can bend the world to your will with a thought, there’s no point in hiding, in not dressing with flash and flare. Anyone who sees you and knows what it means is dead anyways. Annabelle disappears into the black hole in the ceiling. 

“We can still back out,” Jon murmurs, his grip on Martin’s hand tightening. Martin takes the glove off his free hand with his teeth and shoves the thing into his back pocket, then moves behind Jon to wrap his arm around him, hand slinging around his waist to slip under his sweater and shirt to come up and press his palm over his heart, the polyester of his sports bra pilled and catching on his dry calluses. “We don’t have to do this.”

“Do you not want to?” Martin whispers back, putting his mouth next to Jon’s ear. Jon sucks in a quiet breath through his teeth. For a moment, they’re on a palpable precipice- Jon’s heart beating rapidly under Martin’s palm, his body slight against Martin’s chest, the wings of his shoulder blades digging into Martin’s sternum as Martin’s heart kicks back in time. He can practically feel their shared anxiety, the anticipation tensing them up. They can still go back. They can turn and leave. Figure something else out. The world is still survivable- they survive in it every day.

Martin thinks about Melanie’s screaming night terrors. Georgie’s lined face. Basira’s startled grabs for her knife at unexpected noises. Jon’s face somehow managing to encapsulate weariness and bitter terror as they pelt down the street to escape Not-Sasha whenever it manages to catch up with them again. 

At some point he has to wonder, is surviving really living?

“No,” Jon says, turning his cold nose into Martin’s cheek. “No, we have to do this. I _want_ to do this. If we can change this, we need to.”

“Okay,” Martin says, leaning into it. “I want to do this, too.” 

It’s quiet for a moment; just their breathing, the skittering noises of the house, a creak as their weight shifts and settles on the floorboards.

“I really love you, you know?” Martin says, and his voice cracks slightly on the words. “I really do.”

“I know,” Jon says. “I know. I love you.”

“Hurry up!” Annabelle snaps from above them.

“You can _wait,”_ Jon snaps back, crabby. “You’re _killing_ us, you can give us a damn moment to ourselves.”

“For _fuck’s_ sake!” Annabelle says, hanging her head down over the edge of the door, “I’m not killing you! You’re not dying! You’re _starting over.”_

Martin grunts, shutting his eyes and tipping his head to rest his temple against Jon’s forehead. His skin is warm under Martin’s fingers, soft and a little sweaty. The beat of his heart slows slightly as they stand there, hands clasped, Martin holding him close.

“Okay,” Jon says finally. “Let's go.”

It’s pitch black in the attic. With no windows for moonlight to get in, he can’t even tell how big the space is, so Martin, who came up first, immediately fumbles for one of his torches.

“Don’t,” Annabelle murmurs to him, and his hands freeze. “Three steps to the side. Wait.”

He does. 

Everything is dark and close, webbing brushing against him, and he can feel the tugging of strings looping gently around all of his joints. Jon is rattling up the ladder. His throat is tight. He thinks there's a web over his mouth, little legs tap-tap-tapping on the skin of his face, over his nose, across his eye. 

Jon has made it up the ladder now. “Martin?” he calls, and there’s a shuffling of fabric as he reaches for his own torch. A click as he turns it on.

There’s a flash of light almost too bright to comprehend, piercing to the eye not held closed with spider silk. Then he adjusts, and there’s a second where he sees it. A gash in the wall. The light does not reflect off of it or expose its depths, but rather simply ceases to exist upon contact. It’s just _dark._ It is too dark for words. 

There are four sets of spindly black legs extending from it, reaching out.

Jon _screams._

Martin has heard Jon scream before, many times: when Martin blew out his knee, when the Not-Sasha caught up with them the first time, when he’s wracked with pain from a migraine, when he took a headshot from a scared teenager (that one is so intertwined with Martin’s own he barely remembers what it sounded like, just a _noise_ as Jon’s head snapped back, but the bullet only grazed him, ripping a neat line just above his ear), seconds before Martin took shrapnel to the face from a Desolation-fueled explosion, when-

None of them have sounded like this. It is an alien sound, ripping free from Jon’s throat.

Martin _lunges_ for him, feeling something's grip on him break, the webs pulling and snapping, like trying to sprint through glue- _A Guest for Mr. Spider,_ he remembers- throwing a hand out, desperate, his silk-wrapped fingers inches from Jon’s wrist-

The legs are on them, and they pull them both into the gap.

“Huh,” Annabelle says, standing alone in the darkness, her head held high. “That was easier than I thought.”

And then she is nothing. 

And then the wound in the wall is nothing, then the attic is nothing, then the house, the street, the city- all nothing. The continent, the ocean, the creatures within them, the horrors, the terrors, the people. There is no ground. There is no sky. No Falling Titan, or Forever Deep Below Creation, no Eye to watch, no Loneliness to feel, no Rot to corrode, no minds to Twist or Flesh to rend, no Strangers or Spiders or Burning or Hunting or Killing- no Darkness, for there has never been light. There is no End, for there is nothing to die.

Then there is no more nothing. For something to be _nothing,_ it would have to have existed in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to say a quick thank you to:  
> my absolutely phenomenal beta, [Sunny](https://divorcedmilfaddict.tumblr.com/), who beat this thing into something sensical. you are a light in my life and i dont know what I would do without you. please pay him your respects.  
> [Nathan](https://manletjon.tumblr.com/), for helping me come up with this in the first place and being half the reason i'm funny ever. couldnt do it without you  
> all of my other friends who were excited for this. sorry it took like 2 months to do chapter one.
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](https://themlet.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/wateroses) for updates on future (haha) chapters, or to tell me what you thought!
> 
> comments and kudos are desperately appreciated.
> 
> EDIT: this fic has fanart now!!! holy shit!!
> 
> [annabelle’s entrance by cheerie](https://cheerie.tumblr.com/post/190706430265/a-young-woman-drifts-down-from-the-ceiling-a)


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